


A Moment's Peace

by Ithika



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: A good old fashioned shoot out, Arthur really doesn't enjoy Saint Denis, Gen, shootout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-27 04:04:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18189533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithika/pseuds/Ithika
Summary: Arthur Morgan just wanted a whiskey.





	A Moment's Peace

Arthur Morgan hisses softly as he knocks back his shot of whiskey, the glass clunking dully as he slaps it back down onto the scarred wooden bar in this smoky Saint Denis dive. _Nasty swill_ , he thinks through grit teeth, gesturing with a lazy finger for the barman to pour him another.

It had been a long day, and even bad grog was better than the prospect of turning in for the night with nothing to take the edge off. Perhaps later on he’d wander down and see a show, like he and Mary had done together when they were young, long ago. He swirls his second drink in its cup, watching the amber liquid leave slow-moving trails up the walls of the glass as it turned. Maybe he wouldn’t go to the theatre, after all. No point in chasing ghosts.

The cup pauses at his lips when a shadow - barely perceptible through the grimy trail-dust that coated it - passes the dive’s singular window. This would be unremarkable, but for the irritated snort of his stoic Ardennes, Nero, hitched outside. An unflappable horse, Nero was rarely bothered by anything - except, he didn’t like folk much as weren’t Arthur, especially if they got too close. Especially if they had guns.

Listening with all his will, Arthur places the whiskey, untouched, back on the bar. His right hand makes its way to his hip, where his Schofield is holstered. As he pulls it free, flipping open the barrel to ensure it was fully loaded, the barman sees him. “Aw,  _ hell _ .”

Hearing the bitter remark, Arthur glances at the moustachioed feller out of the corner of his eye - most of his attention still devoted to the door. The barman, eyes darting between the big man still seated at the bar and the entryway, drops the glass he’d been wiping with a rag and backs away, pressing himself into the shadows.

_ Yep. It was really one of them days. _

Arthur vaults over the bar, spilling his undrunk whiskey over his hand and the floor, just as the bounty hunters - two at least - slam through the rickety saloon doors.

“Arthur Morgan?” A rough voice, full of challenge, sounds into the quiet room. Arthur sighs, pulling his sidearm, a well-worn cattleman, free from its holster and bracing himself against the cupboards behind the bar, pistols raised and ready. “We’re here to arrest you on behalf of the state of Ne--” the man’s gravelly pronouncement is interrupted by the sound of breaking glass and the slamming of a door - the flight of the barman, no doubt- and Arthur curses under his breath.  _ Which state? _

The outlaw tenses, raising his guns a little higher as he shifts his weight the better to move from his position. “Which state?” Arthur barks the question, ears straining for both the answer and the sound of his hunters’ movements.

“What? Why--” The bounty hunter is taken by surprise a moment, before seeming to collect himself. Arthur can hear his careful footsteps as he makes his way further into the saloon, spurs jingling softly on every step. “That ain’t much of your concern, partner. Come out with your hands up. Don’t give us no trouble, now.”

There is another man, creeping in after the first; Arthur can just make out the sound of another muffled set of footfalls. The outlaw cocks one pistol, then the other. “Well,” he sighs, watching shadowy reflections move across the dusty bottles on display behind the bar. “That’s true. But it’d be a shame t’ kill you fellers if you ain’t lookin’ t’ do the same t’ me.”

Slowly, and grateful for his decision to leave his own spurs at camp this morning, Arthur moves from where he’d been crouched, keeping eyes on the shadows and ears pricked for footfalls.

“New Austin, ya cocky bastard. An’ there’s five of us-” There had been some kind of a slip on  _ five _ , Arthur notes. Probably, there isn’t five of them - “so come on out, now. Save us all the damn trouble.”

_ New Austin _ . Well, that made things simple. Several feet from where he’d been when he’d last spoken, Arthur bursts up from behind his cover, shooting the second bounty hunter clean through the chest. In New Austin he was wanted dead or alive; the five thousand dollars on his head left no time for idle talk. The bounty hunter drops like a sack of grain.

A bullet whips past his ear as Arthur drops back into cover, this time with a crash as he tips over a crate of beer bottles, the liquid hissing as gas escapes from broken glass.

“Christ!” The first bounty hunter swears, firing a few more rounds towards Arthur as he steps back to check on his fallen comrade. Finding him dead, the hunter hurls another curse at his quarry. “You’ll burn in hell for this, Morgan!”

“This and more, mister,” Arthur calls back, stealing glances into the shadows where the barman had disappeared from earlier.  _ There must be a door _ . The saloon doors slap against the walls as two more men barrel through them, and Arthur, reaching behind him, finds a doorframe.

Not a moment too soon - one of the men, enraged at the sight of his fallen comrade, charges the bar, leaping over it and firing a shot just as Arthur makes his lunge for freedom. Both shoulders feel impact: his left connecting with the heavy mass of the flimsily-latched door; his right the burning shock of a bullet grazing past him. He lets out a grunt of pain as the door gives way, raising his now-wounded arm to fire covering shots blindly behind him as he hurtles out of the door.

With no time to stop to think, Arthur runs haphazardly through the unfamiliar alleyway, stealing glances behind him as he bowls pell-mell through the twisting space between buildings. It doesn’t take long before another bullet whistles past him, this one lodging itself in the cobbles several feet in front of him. Without a moment’s hesitation, Arthur takes hold of the newel post to the stairs of some unknown establishment, all but swinging himself into cover with the momentum of his fleeing. “No more of you boys got to die today,” He calls, knowing full well his hiding place was no secret.

A large crate, mouldering and clearly abandoned, nestled under the stairs, and Arthur presses his back to it, panting, as he peers out from his cover, trying to get a sense for where his pursuers were. One of the men, his red-ribboned hat sporting an unreasonably wide brim, takes several shots at Arthur from where he himself hunkers, barely concealed behind an oak barrel. “Oh, we ain’t plannin’ on doing the dyin’, Morgan!” This one speaks with a high, reedy voice bereft of fear.

Taking a steadying breath, Arthur leans out from cover again to take his shot, aiming at the man’s exposed heel. When he cries out in pain, starting and breaking cover with a yelp, the outlaw doesn’t hesitate in finishing the job.

“Didn’t want to kill no one today,” he mutters to himself, reloading his Schofield as he hears one of the other bounty hunters call out in rage and dismay. Spinning the barrel back into place with irritable haste, Arthur scowls, peeking out over the crate and through the stairs towards his attackers. “Two left now, y’ bastards.” This he mutters under his breath, watching for movement as he scans the alleyway for what he figured remained of the posse.

He’s just about to fire when he hears that old, familiar pipe, and his blood runs cold. The whistle of lawmen is unmistakable, and Arthur swears viciously as he looks around him for an exit he may have missed on first inspection.

Nothing but mute, immovable brick stares back at him - he had good cover, but he’d backed himself into a hole.  _ “Shit.” _

Saint Denis. It was  _ always _ Saint Denis, wasn't it?

Unwilling to sit in this deathtrap for a moment longer, Arthur charges out from beneath the staircase, firing at the one bounty hunter he could see. The first shot goes wide, ricocheting with a loud, almost comical twang and a harmless spray of brick dust. The second, fired from Arthur's left, finds its mark - or only just. The would-be hunter gives a horrible choked cry as he falls, bright red blood bubbling at a wound opened in his throat.

There is no time for remorse, though, the final ranger stepping out from where he'd hidden in a deep doorway, gun trained on Arthur.  **_Shit_ ** _ , _ the outlaw repeats in his mind, watching the man and his gun.

His own pistols are still in his hands, though not raised, so Arthur freezes, wondering why the bounty hunter hasn't shot him already.

“I know the bill reads  _ 'dead or alive _ ,’” the other man sneers, and Arthur supposes after what's just unfolded, he can't really blame the man for his tone, “but I'd  _ really _ like to watch you do the dance on nothin’, Morgan.” He gestures for Arthur to come closer with his pistol. In the distance, the law's whistles are growing nearer.

There was no  _ tim _ e for this, Arthur berates himself, while his mind turns quickly. The bounty hunter was not so far away; the alley was narrow, twisted in on itself as haphazard buildings crowded into one another. Arthur was larger than his would-be gaoler. Stronger, probably. More desperate, of a certainty.

And what did he have to lose? Dead was dead, and if he was to choose between the noose and a bullet, Arthur couldn’t think of a single reason not to take his chances. Before the bounty hunter had a chance to change his mind, the outlaw lowers his guns some and steps forward, the irons twirling on his thumbs as he makes a show of surrender. He changes the step into a lunge just as the man locks eyes with him, knowing himself never to have been much of a liar.

Throwing all his weight and strength behind the move, Arthur slams the startled gunslinger against the rough alley wall. The move knocks the air from both of them, the two snarling like a pair of fighting curs as they grapple for the bounty hunter's pistol.

The other man fights with a fierce, wiry strength that keeps Arthur from easily taking the upper hand; especially with the bullet wound in his arm throbbing more with every passing moment. But the outlaw manages a blow to the smaller man's jaw, then pins a forearm across his chest, shoving him hard against the wall once more for good measure. He's able, finally, to push the hand that still grips a pistol up and away, harmless even before he twists the weapon from increasingly desperate fingers.

There is a moment, as the prone man stares at Arthur with desperate, frightened eyes, that the fierce outlaw wonders how long he'd survive if his strength ever left him. How could he possibly continue to lead this life if he managed, against all odds, to grow old?

But it is only a moment, for the law's whistles are growing nearer, their shrill call adding urgency to Arthur's movements. “Damn you, you  _ stupid _ bastard,” Arthur growls in his attacker's face - though whether his words are directed inwards or outwards is anybody's guess. “I didn't want to kill nobody today. Just wanted a goddamn  _ drink _ , a moment's fucking  _ peace _ .”

The bounty hunter remains very still, fingers of the arm still held prone above his head twitching as he struggles to keep himself alive. He works his mouth. “I - It weren’t nothin’ personal.” He'd have shrugged, had Arthur not still been pinning him so firmly. “The money's real good.”

Blue eyes narrow as Arthur presses a little harder on the man’s chest. “Dancin’ on nothin’ is pretty personal, partner.” Growled words low and full of threat, he releases the man's hand, bringing the bounty hunter's own pistol level with his chest as he backs away. He hopes the other man doesn't figure out that Arthur is hoping not to fire the weapon; those lawmen were getting awful close.

Thankfully, the mercenary keeps his hands raised, the fight seeming to have gone out of him- maybe it was the knowledge of having started this venture with three compatriots, now having none.

“Consider yourself lucky, friend,” Arthur drawls as he gestures for the man to turn, pulling a length of rope from his satchel. “Seems I really ain't in the mood for killin’. Get down, don't give me no trouble, or I  _ will _ change my mind.”

Satisfied that there would be no surprise escapes for the hogtied man in the near future, Arthur begins to trot back the way he'd come, towards the dive bar.

“Hey! You can't leave me like this! Nobody comes down here!”

“I can put a bullet in you, if you'd rather,” Arthur calls over his shoulder as he reaches the door he'd fled from earlier.

~

His return to the bar is greeted by a shattering of glass as the barman, now returned, drops the tumbler he'd been drying. “God's wounds,” he swears, and Arthur holds up a hand to calm the man as though he were a horse while his eyes scan the room for signs of further trouble.

Satisfied by the quiet, Arthur pulls his bill fold from his satchel, thumbing a few bills out to place on the bar. “For your silence, if the law comes askin’.” The two men share a significant glance, the barkeep breaking it when he nods hurriedly, swiping the notes towards him.

“O-of course, Mister - Mister, ah, Morgan, was it?”

Arthur shakes his head slowly, reaching for an open bottle of whiskey and repouring himself the drink he'd been denied earlier. “I ain't never seen no ‘Mister Morgan,’ and neither have you. We clear?”

The barman nods skittishly, and Arthur returns the gesture with all the carefree swagger in the world. “Good.”

He gives the whiskey a single swirl in its cup before knocking it back, hissing as the harsh liquid burns its way down his throat.

He slaps the bar with an open hand after returning his cup. “Okay, catch you later, then.”

The stunned barman simply watches him go, praying to God that he would not. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I really couldn't resist that closing line, and I am sorry about it. Let's all assume Arthur managed to evade detection for long enough that the Law left him alone.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this first foray of mine into RDR fic. I plan to write much more with this darling cowboah, once I figure out how to capture him a little better.


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